Flooded to the Fingertips
by SunsetJello394
Summary: Who the hell told Beck it was okay to make Jade fall in love with him? Because it's not. It's not okay at ALL.


Who the hell told Beck it was okay to make Jade fall in love with him?

She doesn't mean to. God knows she resists like a nun sworn to celibacy. It just doesn't make any _sense_ to her. He's the guy the entire eighth grade likes, and she's the one they all fear. And she _likes_ it that way. It makes her feel like she has some degree of power in her life that's wildly spinning out of control. Her parents went through a terrible, nasty divorce recently, and all of a sudden her dad is threatening to send her to boarding school in Massachusetts instead of Hollywood Arts High School. She worked her ASS off to get into that school. She worked on her audition video for months. And her dad thinks he can just disregard that because he doesn't understand creative people? Such bullshit.

That spring, Beck moves from Canada to Los Angeles, and Jade finds herself . . . falling. Not romantic, swoony, giggly falling. Scary, breath knocked out of lungs, ground disappearing from underneath feet falling. The feelings that stir in her chest like leaves spiraling on a sidewalk scare her. She can't let herself open up to anyone. That would just lead to more heartache, of that she's sure. She fights the attraction off like a spiderweb from which she can't disentangle herself: internal kicking and screaming and flailing of limbs; external eyerolls and exasperated sighs and threatening snips of scissors. But _God_. The way he absentmindedly runs a hand through his freakishly wonderful hair when they're reading silently in English. His sheepish smile. His openness, alluring because it is just the opposite of her. The way he's unfailingly nice and still a freaking badass, badass enough to rival her.

When Beck asks Jade to the spring dance, she turns him down. Her stomach is screaming as she sees him psych himself up, then stride over to her table at the library. She wants to run. Her resolve isn't that strong. It _isn't_. But somehow she finds the strength to tell him no, quite snidely and with a glare, because it's for the best. It is for the best, right?

It isn't for the best. Beck doesn't give up so easily. He keeps talking to her in class, always with a mischievous smile like he knows she's going to crack eventually. And oh Lord, does Jade want to crack. But she can't. She's fallen so hard that she's afraid cracking would break her permanently. So she continues to snap at him, but edges of her words gradually round and soften until there's maybe, just maybe, a smile underneath them. One time in choir he gets her to laugh out loud right in the middle of a scale, and he tucks the sound deep in his chest because it may just be the most beautiful he's ever heard.

April turns into May, and Beck and Jade somehow melt into BeckandJade. Jade finds herself smiling as she goes to sleep, and immediately scowling when she catches herself. She isn't in love. She _isn't_, okay? Just because he's the only thing that makes her smile most days, and he has the most goddamn beautiful smile in the world, and he texts her last thing at night and first thing in the morning just to distract her from the fact that her dad no longer seems to care . . . none of that indicates that Jade West is in love with Beck Oliver.

Oh, fuck it. Of _course_ she's in love. And you know what? She's kind of pissed about it. Who the hell told Beck it was okay to make Jade fall in love with him? Because it's _not_. It's not okay at ALL.

Except it is okay, because, despite everything she is, _he loves her back_. It's the last day of school, of eighth grade, of middle school (and holy shit they're gonna be in HIGH SCHOOL), and Jade kind of has a bittersweet taste in her mouth. Yeah, she and Beck are going to the same high school, but it's kind of ridiculous how much she's going to miss him over the summer. Not that she'd ever tell him that. He's not hers, not really. And then, like a sparkler catching fire . . . he is. They walk to the park together after school, neither one willing to say the final goodbye. There's a palpable force tugging them together all afternoon, until she can't take it anymore and funnels all of the frustration she's felt towards him and herself into this _kiss_, this surprising yet totally inevitable meeting of lips. They're fourteen: it's awkward and inexperienced, but still Jade feels it down to her combat boot-clad toes. Beck pulls back and stares into her eyes with this look of awe and laughs, like _Did that actually just happen? AWESOME_. He spins her around and sets her back down, giddy. He spits out the question, almost yelps it: _I've been wondering for a while if you'd be my girlfriend, Jade._

Of course she says yes. She's done pretending. She wants to be happy, okay? Beck makes her happy. Yeah, she fell hard. But she's positive Beck will catch her before she hits the ground.

_I love you_, Beck whispers into Jade's hair. She curls her fingers into his, feeling the heat of his palm against hers. Something melts deep inside of Jade, floods her to the fingertips with a sensation sweet and unnamable. She presses her lips to his ear. _I love you, too._


End file.
